By Junius Williams
Bisa Butler is a young, talented quilter from South Orange New Jersey, whose work has gained international attention. Recently I heard her on WNBC-TV talking about her masterpiece, “The Warmth of Other Sons,” which has a permanent home in the much-renown Newark Art Museum. It is a spectacular quilt in the living color of the Great Migration when a million African Americans fled the South and moved to places like Newark, New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles to get away from Jim Crow violence, segregation, and economic exploitation.
It is more than just a work of art, but a portrayal of history, a story written in the faces and body language of the men, women, and children who lived that sometimes perilous journey, leaving everything in hope of a better future for themselves and their children.
And then I pictured the Haitians, 15,000 of them who had crossed the Rio Grande that separates Mexico from the United States, waiting patiently to apply for asylum in the U.S., in a Del Rio, Texas. On their way, North, seeking the same relief and opportunity my father’s parents sought just two generations ago.
It seemed they just appeared overnight and were now being pushed and shoved by armed border patrolmen on horses, as more attempted to join the encampment or went back and forth into Mexico to get food for their families. What is their story as seen on their faces, their brown bodies, and the voices of the children, some of whom spoke no Haitian Creole but Spanish?
This migration started in Haiti 10 years ago and took some of the adults to Brazil, Panama, Chile, and most recently Mexico, all in search of that better life, towards that compelling beacon that flashed, “The United States.”
They gave up whatever they had accumulated, converted whatever little wealth they had to get money to continue their journey, and here they are, knocking on what they thought was Freedom’s Door, only to be met with the same violence and humiliation they were fleeing.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said his state was being “invaded” by Haitians. Why don’t you call them who they are: a part of the vanguard of hungry and oppressed people from the geographic South who stand in line for recognition by the US government that they are entitled to entry for a better life because of America’s unclean hands in its treatment of Haiti and other countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In an article published by the United States Institute of Peace (2006), the author said:
By 1984, it was evident that the Haitian assembly industry—which symbolized the international community’s development strategy—provided no long-term benefits to the country. Materials were imported for assembly, while finished products were exported and consumed abroad. Reliance on cheap, unskilled labor did little to improve the skills of Haiti’s labor force, encourage training or stimulate technology transfer. Reliance on the U.S. market meant Haiti was at the mercy of U.S. import quotas and consumer preferences.
In 2002, only four percent of the population (at the behest of homegrown dictators and outside foreign influences) controlled 66% of the country’s assets. Meanwhile, a series of ruinous agricultural trade policies destroyed Haiti’s previously successful small farmers, a sector that had produced exports of rice, pork, and chicken. Haiti became a net importer of agricultural products with growing food insecurity and malnutrition for the majority of its people.
Maybe Bisa Butler can quilt this journey of the Haitian people, showing in their bodies their betrayal; their endurance, character, anger, grit, and determination, despite all the obstacles thrown in their path in their decade-long journey, always to the North. Certainly, the story of these 15,000 people is a story to be told as a portrait of suffering and determination: but also, a story of deceit, and exploitation by the usual suspects within the United States of America.
Junius Williams is a Newark attorney, a civil rights activist, a grassroots organizer and a Newark, New Jersey Historian.
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